Say It Ain't So
by priceless advice
Summary: You know what they say: like father like son. Based on a song by Weezer.


Hey all:) Now this is my first attempt at writing a songfic. It is to Weezer's "Say It Ain't So" which is a great song, I might add. I was really bored at work today, and I am basically finished studying for exams, so I decided to do this songfic I've had in my mind for a while. (Lucky me, I sit right next to a computer...I have one of those easy work-study jobs at the college aka sit-on-your-butt-and-do-nothing-but-get-paid-for-it-jobs LOL).  
  
Please please please review! I want to know how ya'll feel about my songfic. I gotta admit, doing a songfic is harder for me than doing a regular story cause you have to analyze the lyrics and stick to them (at least IMHO).   
  
And I don't own Steve or his father, they are courtesy of SE Hinton.   
  
Okay ya'll....read and enjoy (I hope!) _  
  
  
  
A plain neighborhood somewhere unimportant: 1986_  
  
Steve sat back on his plain brown sofa, in the plain atmosphere, letting the plain water slip down his meager throat. The liquid wasn't cold, the liquid wasn't hot. It just was. Almost like Steve had been his whole life. He wasn't ugly, he wasn't handsome, he was just stuck right in the fucking middle. He was never "Steve the cold hearted hoodlum" or "Steve the movie star lookalike with a magnetic presence." He wasn't "Steve the smart little kid who skipped a grade" or "Steve the battered soul who was the gang's pet." He was just a sidekick, a fucking sidekick who filled in the loose spaces.  
  
Oh man, were there ways to make yourself just more than just a filler. Ways to make yourself just a little more harsh than usual, just a bit more crude. There are also ways to escape your bland existence, ways to convince yourself that you're better than the average joe. Apparently Steve wasn't above average enough for wife and child. He followed everything in the rule book. Work. Home. Food-on-the-table. Work. Home... Hey, he didn't bother the kid. He didn't bother the wife. He just sat. On. The. Couch.Wife didn't think it was good enough. Wife left. Wife brought kid along.   
  
_There are ways to become worse than the average joe._   
  
God if that water was just a bit different, maybe a bit of a metallic taste to it. What if it could be that the water was contaminated, its pungency traveling through his body. Maybe it could cause cancer, tumors starting at the core of his insides and multiplying in his lungs till he was suffocating, his heart stopping, a last breath escaping his lips.   
  
_At least he'd be feeling something._   
  
His way to be better than the average joe used to be cars. God how he could take anything on four wheels, tweak it a bit, and make it run like magic. It was amazing, to be just a little bit better than ordinary. But it wasn't enough, he needed something extra. He couldn't feel it anymore. He gave up. He faced reality. He got a real job. He married. He had a kid.   
  
_Don't give in. _  
  
He knew that one thing that would make it all go away. He had totally abstained, he knew what it could do to you. He knew what it had done to his father.   
  
Steve, after his insipid day at the office, had started to drive home the route he always drove. This time he would be driving to an empty house. This time something caught his eye. The multicolored blocks rotating in the plain yellow sun, the blocks that read _ABC Liquor_. God, how those letters looked so beautiful to him. His heart pounded just a nanosecond faster, a smile almost forming on the edges of his plain mouth. He pulled into the parking lot, and tottered into the forbidden store.   
  
_**Oh yeah. Alright.**_  
  
He walked through the plain white picket fence, through the front door of his matchstick house. The house was colored yellow. All the houses in the neighborhood were colored yellow.   
  
He stuffed it in the fridge.  
  
_**Somebody's Heine'  
Is crowdin' my icebox  
Somebody's cold one  
Is givin' me chills  
Guess I'll just close my eyes**_  
  
Now it was beckoning him. It wouldn't be flavorless like the water he was consuming. He couldn't escape the thought from his mind: that it would burn as he swallowed it. He got up. He walked. To the fridge. He. Pulled. It. Out.  
  
**_Oh yeah  
Alright  
Feels good  
Inside_**  
  
Steve used to come home from a day at grade school, that man stumbling in from another monotonous day at work. God, he didn't even deserve a name. That lazy, boring, piece of worthless shit. He never helped his son, never cared about his son.   
  
_Dad had given in. _  
**_  
Flip on the tele  
Wrestle with Jimmy  
Something is bubbling  
Behind my back  
The bottle is ready to blow_...**  
  
The lazy piece of shit would sit on the sofa. Steve would play. Steve would stare at the TV. Steve would pretend like everything was fine, pretend like his father wasn't bringing the canned heat to his lips. His father wasn't really slurring his words, his father wasn't becoming increasingly angry. His father hadn't stumbled and cracked his head on the fireplace.   
  
Steve got older. Steve formed habits. Steve formulated his habits from his father. He would get angry, man would he get angry! You know what they say…  
  
_Like father like son. _  
  
**_Say it ain't so  
Your drug is a heartbreaker_**  
  
Steve almost felt like crying. Sometimes. Real men don't cry.   
  
**_Say it ain't so  
My love is a life taker_**  
  
Steve taught himself not to cry. Not to flare up with anger anymore. Just like his ordinary existence, his insides had no ups and downs. Plastic feelings, plastic life. The suppression sucked out his vitality.   
  
_**I can't confront you  
I never could do  
That which might hurt you  
So try and be cool**_  
  
Steve never wanted to look inside himself, to see what he was becoming. He didn't want to do anything about it. If he did, he knew it would come back again. It hurts. It fucking hurts to look at what you've decayed into. He wanted to feel, but the first step was too hard to take by himself. He wanted someone else, something else, to do it for him. Just ignore the problem and it'll go away. Stay calm. Stay stiff. Don't feel. Just sit. On. The. Couch.   
  
**_When I say  
This way is a waterslide away from me  
That takes you further every day  
So be cool_**  
  
It stung while it traveled through his body. Gulp after gulp, it carried his mind away. Steve loved it, he loved the feeling. Steve hadn't loved anything in a long time. Steve hadn't felt anything in a long time. He became removed from his bland, common self. He became someone different.   
  
Steve started with just a little bit, the amount growing larger and larger, day after day. He was growing farther away from himself, a second self had almost completely become unattached from the plain Steve.   
  
_ Don't think about what you've become. Be cool._   
  
The old Steve had now slipped away, carried by the currents of the plain, flavorless water. Memories of the bastard floated away with him. New Steve was finally free from the latches of his father.   
  
**_Say it ain't so  
Your drug is a heartbreaker  
Say it ain't so  
My love is a life taker_**  
_  
** Dear Daddy,  
I write you in spite of years of silence.   
You've cleaned up, found Jesus, things are good or so I hear.  
**__**  
This bottle of Steven's awakens ancient feelings.  
Like father, stepfather, the son is  
Drowning in the flood.**_  
_  
_New Steve was drowning in a liquid that burned.  
_   
Funny. A liquid that burns. _  
  
**_Say it ain't so  
Your drug is a heartbreaker  
Say it ain't so  
My love is a life taker_**  
  
New Steve thought he was free from the latches of his father. Steve didn't know he was all the more tied down. Steve had become his father.   
  
_You know what they say: like father like son...._  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
